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I have a road bike tire and was going to put it on my mountain bike since I use it to commute to work.

Should I replace the front or back tire? Which will give me the better performance?

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    If you can lock-out the suspension then you'll cease loosing power to bounce. Road bikes have no suspension beyond the rider's legs. Downside of locked out suspension, you're still carrying the suspension parts with you.
    – Criggie ♦
    Commented Jan 3, 2017 at 8:43
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    My speed went up about ~10%, 28 minutes from 31 minutes (put the tire on the front). Keep in mind that's only on two rides of 5.5 miles each way so not a real indication if that was just a fluke or the road tire.
    – Philip Rollins
    Commented Jan 7, 2017 at 15:24

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For efficiency I would put the road tire on the back, as the rear carries more weight. However, front would be best if cornering traction was important.

If the MTB tires have an aggressive MTB tread pattern the mismatch would be best addressed by matching tires and getting another road tire.

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    Agreed - tyres are consumables, and OP can store the MTB tyre for reuse in the future.
    – Criggie ♦
    Commented Jan 3, 2017 at 8:44
  • Thank you, I decided to put it on the front since there are some almost u-turns on the bike path. Probably get another road tire or something like a cruiser tire for a little more traction but not as much as a mountain bike needs. I'll post the differences on here for others to see either tonight or tomorrow night.
    – Philip Rollins
    Commented Jan 3, 2017 at 15:11
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    Just get 2 road bike tires
    – Dan Z
    Commented Jan 4, 2017 at 4:15
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FRONT! The reduction of vibration on concrete or asphalt makes it a "must" for me on all my mountain bikes. You don't notice a lack of knobs when off-road but you do for the better on hard roads.

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    It would be interesting to clarify what you mean by "off-road", if you don't notice the lack of knobs when riding. The only use case I would see that matching is dry compacted ground, which is only a subset of off-road. In all other cases, using a front road tire on a MTB is the most dangerous option.
    – Rеnаud
    Commented Aug 8 at 8:51

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